


what if i said i was build bricks of callousness & crumbs (you ought to know where i’m coming from)

by possibilist



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 02:20:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2490893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilist/pseuds/possibilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You’re learning how tender she can be, how many protections she has against pressing, aching loneliness." eight times carmilla apologizes to laura, & one time she doesn’t. carmilla/laura. post ep21. angst & fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what if i said i was build bricks of callousness & crumbs (you ought to know where i’m coming from)

what if i said i was build bricks of callousness & crumbs (you ought to know where i’m coming from)  
.  
maybe you can stop before you start/ maybe you can see that i just may be too crazy to love/ if i told you solitude fits me like a glove/ would you let me out? —banks, ‘you should know where i’m coming from’  
/  
1  
.  
She comes back quickly, although you’re not sure how much time has really passed—you feel a little woozy, but not really in a bad way, more like you just really want a nap. You’re not even bleeding that much, but she looks distraught when she sees you on her bed.  
“Verzeihung,” she says, cold hands fluttering a little unsurely before she takes your bloody one away and places hers against the bite marks on your neck. Before you can even ask what the hell verz—whatever—even means, she whispers, “I’m sorry, please forgive me, I’m so sorry.”  
Your brow knits together and you’re sure she’s crying above you, but then she tips her back, and, damn it, you’re so turned on right now, even in the haze. “What’s going to—what—”  
“Nothing,” she says quickly. “The bite won’t do anything, turn you into a vampire or anything like that stupid Tiwlight—it’s more along the lines of True Blood, if anything.”  
A tiny laugh bubbles out of you because thank god but then you ask, “Then why—”  
“When Mother sees the mark she’ll think—she will think that I plan on hurting you, giving you to her. But I don’t, I swear, Laura, I promise that I don’t—it’s going to keep you safe.”  
Maybe it’s because you really wanted her to kiss you, maybe it’s because you just don’t want her to be lying, maybe it’s because her eyes are scared and regretful and so, so earnest, maybe it’s because you’re pretty sure you’re falling asleep, but you say, “Okay, it’s okay.”  
She lets out a breath and her forehead drops to the middle of your chest for a few moments before she lifts her head and nods. “Thank you,” she says quietly with an unnerving amount of sincerity.   
“Can you stay here?” you ask, and really, you figure if another vampire is going to try anything again, it’s probably good to have her around anyway.   
“I wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else,” she says, then stands briefly to grab your pillow before climbing over you in a flash and settling in behind you. You turn and drape an arm over her hard stomach, which turns softer after a few deeper breaths. She kisses your forehead and rubs your back, and you fall asleep.  
The next morning you google things until you find that verzeihung literally means forgiveness, or pardon, but is a very real way in German to say something like I’m so sorry; when you see how carefully she checks on you when she gets back from your Political Science 201 lecture, you take her hand and say, very quietly, “You’re forgiven.”  
/  
2  
.  
“I’m quite glad I missed the Romantics, specifically Transcendentalism,” she says, eyeing your Emerson reading and tossing her bag down on her bed after her seminar that has something to do with esotericism or something.  
“I think they’re nice,” you say as she opens one of your grape sodas and riffles through her bag for a few books.  
“Of course you do,” she mutters.   
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
She shrugs. “You seem to be one for self-completing narratives.”  
You’re pretty sure that’s an insult, but it doesn’t seem like a particularly menacing one.  
She stands behind you and leans over your shoulder, then looks at your syllabus. “I’m sometimes sorry I missed most of the American Gothic,” she says, then laughs to herself. “However, I am glad I missed the Modern, but less so, because the ex-pats in Paris would have been quite interesting to speak to, after all. I think I’d have liked Stein.”  
“In the middle of a tiny spot and nearly bare there is a nice thing to say that wrist is leading. Wrist is leading,” you say, remembering that one line from AP Lit, but suddenly feel self-conscious, because you’re not nearly as well-read—or probably just as smart—as you’re finding she is. “Right?”  
One side of her mouth quirks in a smile. “Tender Buttons, yes,” then takes your hand, turns it over to look at your wrist. “Sugar any sugar, anger every anger, lover sermon lover, centre no distractor, all order is in a measure.” You glance at her, at the way she traces your very, very pounding veins with her pale finger, then meets your gaze.   
“Go ahead,” you breathe, and her eyes close and then her mouth is soft and warm and tasting like grape soda, and her hand is still on your wrist.  
She doesn’t try to deepen the kiss, and for a moment you’re worried about that, but then she backs up with a smile. “I suppose the Modern isn’t so bad after all,” she says, and then kisses you again.  
/  
3  
.  
When you wake up at half past two in the morning, and she’s typing away on her bed, you roll over with a groan and then ask, “What are you writing in the middle of the night?”  
“Pardon, did I wake you?” she asks.  
“No,” you say, and close your eyes. The rhythm of her typing and the little bit of light is strangely comforting. “Did you just speak French?”  
“Yes,” she says, then pauses before: “I’m writing about how wrong Descartes was, for what seems like the hundredth time.”  
“You’re the one who keeps studying philosophy,” you mumble, and she laughs a little.  
“Go to sleep, chère,” she says.  
/  
4  
.  
You find your exact coffee order—a chocolate chip muffin and a grande soy cappuccino with four pumps of vanilla—on your desk the next morning, along with a note in ridiculously pretty handwriting: Scusami, which is scribbled out, followed by Sorry, but this is disgusting.  
It’s 6:45, because you have to get up early in time to make it to your eight o’clock Calculus I lecture, and when you look over, Carmilla is fast asleep, curled up with most of her face pressed into your pillow—you don’t bother trying to take it back anymore—and you shake your head fondly—you figure maybe thinking of cappuccino made her know Italian, you think—and then go to take your shower and get dressed before you put your muffin in your bag and drink you coffee happily on the way to class.  
/  
5  
.  
You get home on Thursday at seven in the evening after a too-long group study session for your Western Civ exam in the morning, and it’s snowing so you’re freezing, so you almost groan when you see that Carmilla has spread books and papers everywhere on the floor, and she’s sitting in the middle of them.   
“Ya izvinyayus' za besporyadok,” she rattles off, and you just raise your eyebrows at her before she shakes her head and presses her hands to her temples. “Sorry for the mess.”  
You sigh and take off your coat and boots, then gingerly step over a few papers to get on her bed—it’s the easier path, you rationalize. “Do I even want to know?”  
“Do you have any interest in the science of antinationalism?”  
“No.”  
“Then probably not,” she says, then scoots a little so she can look up at you.   
“Was that Russian?”  
She nods nonchalantly. “Tell me about your day.”  
“How many languages do you speak?” you ask instead, because really, how did you not know this?  
“Um, fluently? Eight, although I do know Latin and ancient Greek as well, although I don’t quite count those, and I’m working on Mandarin, mostly for developing international rather than academic purposes.”  
“Are you serious?” you ask, because—that’s eleven languages.  
Carmilla shrugs. “I’ve had quite a lot of solitary time on my hands.”  
She’s quiet, then, and turns back to a lot of notes written in what you can tell is her handwriting, but in cyrillic script, and her shoulders are hunched a little. You’re learning how tender she can be, how many protections she has against pressing, aching loneliness.   
You launch into a description of your day, complete with every detail you can think to mention, and she pretends, very adamantly, to ignore you, but you catch her smile, so you keep going anyway.  
/  
7  
.  
When you get back from your weekly Thursday late lunch with LaFontaine, you’re surprised to see Carmilla sitting up in your bed, in one of your pajama t-shirts and underwear, and when she turns to you she’s glassy-eyed and you spot a bottle clutched in her left hand.  
“What is that?” you ask, almost wearily.  
“I’m not good,” she slurs instead, and her Austrian accent is heavier than you’ve ever heard, and you’re almost incredulous, not even bothering to worry about your getting-home-from-class organizational rules as you drop your bag on the floor.  
“Are you drunk?”  
She laughs a little bit. “Absu—abslu—yep.”  
“Carmilla,” you say, because it’s only three in the afternoon, and—“Can vampires even get drunk?”  
She scoffs, then rolls her eyes. “Laura, obviously.”  
You sit on your bed gingerly, and she takes another swig and then wipes her mouth with a grimace. The bottle is about half-empty, which is even more worrisome, because when you’d left at noon, she’d still been asleep.  
“It’s vodka, by the way,” she says, then grins. “Eastern European—best vodka money can buy.”  
“Why are you—”  
“Don’t worry, I can’t throw up, though.”  
“Carmilla,” you say again, sternly this time, and she turns toward you. You can smell her breath and you recoil slightly.   
“Creampuff,” she says lazily. “Did you know in Navajo there’s nothing really to say I’m sorry?”  
“I—no, I didn’t know that,” you say, because maybe this will go somewhere.  
She nods seriously, takes another drink. “The closest they have is like take it from me, did you know that?”  
“No, honey,” you say, scooting a little closer, because really she seems generally harmless.  
“I’m bad for you,” she says quietly.  
“You are not,” you say, which you believe immensely.   
“I am,” she says. “I’m more fucked up than—” she pauses and takes a long drink, and you take her hand after she’s done— “You know there are only a few ways to kill a vampire, right?”  
“Yeah,” you say.  
She plays with your fingers, murmurs, “There are a lot of ways to hurt a vampire, though, because you can’t—you can only kill them—there are a lot of ways to be hurt.”  
You’re still confused but you wait and after a few beats she sighs.  
“I told you about—with Elle—before they sealed me in that coffin they—” she swallows— “there are a lot of ways to hurt a vampire.”  
“Do you—”  
“I know you think your imagination will imagine worse than what they did to me but baby,” she says, then lets out a hollow laugh, “you don’t—you can’t—there are lots of ways,” she repeats again.  
You’re not quite sure what to do with this information, because now your imagination is spinning with a million different horrific scenarios, but then Carmilla takes another big gulp of vodka. When you reach over, though, she allows you to take the bottle from her and put it down on your headboard.  
She finally looks at you, and she’s always said that vampires don’t cry but she’s definitely crying, and she says, “You know, I have seven bachelor’s degrees, five master’s degrees, and four doctorates, and each time I still end up getting drunk because I can’t learn enough to forget.”  
You ignore the fact for now that she has sixteen degrees—you’ll interrogate her later—and instead you just tug her toward you gently. She sort of ungracefully falls into your chest, and you just play with her hair while she sniffles.  
“No one’s taken anything away until you,” she mumbles, and your chest aches, but you kiss her forehead and makes sure she falls asleep.  
/  
8  
.  
She wakes you up at three in the morning, groaning, and when you turn the light on, you see that she’s draped herself in a blanket and is pathetically and clumsily pulling on leggings. “Turn that off,” she mumbles.  
“Are you hungover?”  
“Don’t remember anything I told you yesterday,” she says, and then drops the blanket to the floor and strips off your t-shirt and you try not to stare. She misses the armhole of her sweater once, but she gets it, then puts on a scarf and pulls her hair into a bun on the top of her head, sits down on the floor and puts on her boots.  
You laugh a little, because, yeah, Carmilla is definitely hungover, and she glares up at you.  
“You’re very intimidating right now,” you say, sitting up.  
“Fuck you,” she says, then shakes her head and mumbles something along the lines of, “Lo siento.”  
You shake your head with a smile—Spanish. “Where are you going.”  
She looks at you exhaustedly from her spot on the floor and says, “To get burgers.”  
“At three in the morning?”  
She nods.  
“I thought vampires didn’t like human food?”  
“Why does everyone believe dumbass Twilight?”  
You laugh, and she groans.   
“Quiet, please, for once in your life.”  
“You’re even more of an asshole when you’re hungover.”  
“Are you coming with me or not?” she asks, unsteadily stumbling to her feet.  
“I’m going to sleep,” you say, but you stand and close the short distance between the two of you, brush aside her bangs. “Are you okay?”  
She shrugs. “I’ll be okay.”  
You kiss her gently and then wrap her in a hug—she returns both without hesitation—and then you say, “Bring me some fries and, you know, be safe. I have—”  
“I don’t need pepper spray, or bear spray, or, really, anything, but thank you, sweetheart,” she says, then closes the door.  
You don’t actually go to sleep because you can’t stop thinking of Carmilla, small and vulnerable and heartbroken, with people—beings—hurting her, but she’s back in half an hour, and she eats three cheeseburgers while you eat some fries, and you stay up watching The Office with her, because you figure that your girlfriend admitting to being tortured is enough of a reason to validate skipping your lectures on Friday anyway.  
/  
9  
.  
You’d been nervous, because by now you can figure that Carmilla has been with hundreds of girls, and you’ve only been with one before, in high school. After you manage to divest each other of shirts and bras, she sits back against your hips for a moment. There’s a few small scars above where her heart is—would be?—that almost glimmer in the little bit of sunset remnants through the window, and you don’t even try to imagine what those are from. She’s stunning though, this perfect, pale body, small, round breasts, a muscled line straight down her stomach.  
But then you’re amazed that she seems nervous, too, because she says some terrible line about how she’s seen all of the most famous statues in the world and none compare to you.  
It makes you laugh, and then she frowns, but you shake your head and say, “Come here, idiot.”  
She rolls her eyes but bends down again to kiss you, tangles one of her hands in your hair and kneads your breast with the other, shoves a thigh between your legs.  
She knows what she’s doing enough for the both of you, you figure, so you let your instincts take over, and she checks, “Yeah?” before she moves to take off your underwear.  
“Yeah,” you confirm—she must’ve listened to your rants about consent, which strikes you, even in that heady moment, as incredibly sweet—and then she tugs your panties down your legs and kisses down your stomach.  
Your vocabulary disappears when you feel her tongue and fingers, and everything releases wonderfully after a few minutes, and she wipes her mouth quickly and then kisses you again, slowly this time, before lying next to you and wrapping an arm around you.  
“God, that was—”  
“I know, I’m great,” she says seriously.  
“You’re such a heartless creature from the pits of hell,” you say, still a little breathless and not at all serious.  
She laughs delightedly. “That’s not what you were saying a few minutes ago,” she says.  
“Carmilla, you are—”  
She stops you with another kiss and whispers, “I’m not even sorry at all,” into your mouth.  
Neither are you, not even a little bit.


End file.
